But that's just it, what you see is not what I see. What we see in a player is greatly affected by our feelings on that player.
Some on here are overly critical of Kadri no matter what he does. Others (like myself) are harder on JVR (the very definition of a floater).
I said it in the previous thread but I actually thought Kessel was ok on the backcheck. His forecheck is what got to me.
I agree with you on that front. I thought after Randy basically told him what makes him go is driving hard to the net and he was doing it all of 2014, this year, it was like "hey watch me do that pretty move between my legs, and watch it not work anymore."
I really do try to give players their due (even if I don't like them). I think Phil does get blamed for a lot of stuff that he shouldn't - and I don't think that is fair, and I think I tried to address that the entire season. (again - I can not be held responsible for cranky comments during games
).
I won't deny there is a part of me that is curious what Babcock can do to reinforce that he can be (as we talked about in the other thread) - "not very good." instead of being the sheer liability that he (Bozak/JVR) was (were) this season. I also think if it doesn't take, Phil will be becoming close friends with the press box attendant, as I don't think Babcock will care who is in there and what it looks like to the media.
Nonis and Burke really messed up by failing to build around him, and I think whatever happens, the Leafs per usual are going to be holding the short end of the stick.
* we lost 6 years of cost-control Phil and didn't build around him
* every year from now we're losing prime Phil. (I do believe that a lot of players after 30 tend to lose a step and slow down. I don't know if Phil is that kind of player, but I think we can all agree, regardless of how we feel about his conditioning or not, if Phil's speed starts to slow down, a part of what makes him dynamic is gone).
* we don't have assets to build him around him now, nor do I think the organization wants to gun for 8th place anyway. (not anymore). Babcock himself pretty much said it was the #1 reason why he didn't want to come here if we were going to 'rush' through anything until he was told that everyone was on board with going nice and slow.
I don't think the deal we're going to get is going to be mind-blowingly amazing, and it could hurt us (though I try to keep optimistic and think it works out happily in the end).